India is ramping up missile sales in the Indo-Pacific as China’s assertiveness makes neighbors wary
The Indian Army’s Brahmos missile system participates in full-scale training ahead of the Republic Day Parade 2025, at Kartavya Path on January 20, 2025 in New Delhi, India.
Raj K Raj | Hindustan Times | Getty Images
India will supply its BrahMos and Astra missiles to Indonesia, the country’s third such deal in the Indo-Pacific, underscoring New Delhi’s rise as a regional defense supplier amid growing concerns about China’s assertiveness.
BrahMos, a supersonic cruise missile capable of fighting ships, has gained a lot of interest from buyers in the Indo-Pacific region as these countries with limited navies need to defend disputed areas in the South China Sea, experts told CNBC.
“BrahMos and air-to-air missiles are new areas in our cooperation [with Indonesia],” said a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday, adding that BrahMos is an important area of cooperation and the terms of trade are still being decided between the two sides.
Buyers are most interested in the anti-ship type of BrahMos, which has a range of 300 kilometers and a very high speed that makes it difficult to intercept, Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Arms Transfer Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNBC.
“It’s one of the biggest and fastest on the market right now,” he added. BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India’s Defense Research and Development Organization and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia.
The only other missile similar to the BrahMos is China’s YJ-12, Douglas Barrie, senior director of military aviation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNBC in an email.
BrahMos in the Indo-Pacific
The Philippines became the first buyer of BrahMos in 2022. In May this year, India’s defense secretary said the country had signed an agreement to sell the missile to Vietnam, Reuters reported. India’s Defense Ministry and BrahMos Aerospace did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Both deals are motivated by “the perception of China’s growing threat in the South China Sea,” Collin Koh, a senior official at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, told CNBC.
While Indonesia does not see China as a major security threat, it has differences with Beijing over the “North Natuna Sea claim,” Koh added.
On Monday, China’s navy test-fired a ballistic missile in the Pacific, a move expected to push countries in the region to deepen defense ties between China’s growing military.
That makes India increase its defense deployment in the region, experts say, as it is seen as a job provider, not aligned with any of the superpowers, and is not considered a security threat in the region.
The strengthening of defense cooperation between Indo-Pacific countries is part of efforts to counter the “China threat,” Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia programs at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told CNBC.
He added that these countries want to build defense ties that are “less dependent” on the US, all of which makes India an effective defense partner and “the BrahMos missile system is very profitable.”
But while the BrahMos deal helps India rally regional allies against China, experts say it doesn’t move the needle on New Delhi’s ambition to become a major defense supplier.
Defense exports
The sale of BrahMos is “the strongest visible evidence of what India has done in the world of arms manufacturers and exporters,” SIPRI’s Wezeman said, but added that India’s defense exports have had limited success when it comes to major contracts.
Orders for India’s Tejas fighter jets or frigates “could be more expensive than most BrahMos orders,” he added.
Although exports have grown over the past 10 years, they were worth just 384 billion rupees ($4 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 2026. That’s a little more than 1% of the total $331 billion in arms sales by the US, the world’s largest arms supplier.
India is not among the world’s top 25 arms traders, according to SIPRI’s 2021–2025 major data on arms transfers, joining fifth-placed China and ninth-placed South Korea.
New Delhi, however, is the fifth largest military exporter in the world and the second largest importer of arms with a share of over 8%, according to SIPRI’s 2026 annual report.
